Kalinga University to open school for tribals

Bangalore, May 4: Encouraged by the success of running a tribal school in Bhubaneswar, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) is planning to a start a similar school near Bangalore.

The proposed school complex would come up in five to ten acres of land to provide education and necessary infrastructure facilities including accommodation to the tribal children. A proposal had already been submitted to Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur seeking allotment of land.

Disclosing this to UNI, KISS Founder Secretary Achyuta Samanta said here that the school would initially provide free education to around 1000 children belonging to tribal families. Funds required for the project would be raised locally, once the land was allotted by the government, he added.

The ultimate objective was to set up a University of Tribals, exclusively for children hailing from various tribal belts across the country. Facilities, among others, to be provided at the university included food, cloth books and education from Kindergarten to Post Graduation, all under one roof, he said.

He said KISS had already succeeded in its venture to provide free education to tribal children in Bhubaneswar, where 5000 tribal children were accommodated in a Tribal Residential School in the KISS campus. This included some from tribes classified as primitive.

The intake would be increased to 8000 children during this year, he added.

Dr Samanta, who has the distinction of being the youngest Vice Chancellor of a university in India, by Limca Book of Records, has to his credit a conglomeration of educational institutions ranging from Engineering, Rural Management, Computer, Language, Law and Health through a non-governmental organisation called Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology(KIIT).